More than I let on
by inkavzpicuous
Summary: "Someday I'll close that chapter of my life that has been labelled with three words that are so special. When that day comes, I'll get rid of the blade and the retcon, and I'll begin to live again. All I wish is that that day stops seeming like an unattainable dream." Jack's gone and Ianto misses him more than he should.


_I forgot again, today, two times. And I know that that made Gwen cry, not that she'll ever admit it. I wish I wouldn't keep doing that. Each time I remember again, it feels like I've been stabbed straight through the heart, and it becomes harder each time to bring myself back from the edge of the chasm of the blissfully oblivious world of retcon, or death. _

_I've begun to crave that. I spend hours each night imagining what it must be like if I had no duty, no responsibility, nobody. I could disappear and no one would worry. But they've lost one person already, and I can't disappear on them as well. Damn him for taking even _that_ decision from me._

_But that would be the coward's way out, wouldn't it? And if there's one thing he taught me and showed me every day, it was that I am no coward. _

_I would be lying if I said that that was the only thing I learnt from him. I will always remember those nights when we would sit together for hours after the others left, cups of coffee sitting forgotten in front of us as he told me tales of adventures on planets a million of light years away and aliens that I couldn't even imagine, tales of a madman travelling around in a box and a certain blonde teenage girl. _

_I feel so alone now. I try not to be envious of the fact that Gwen has Rhys to go home to, and that Tosh and Owen seem closer than ever. I am happy for them, truly. Heaven knows they deserve the peace they find outside this world. All I wish was that I could find that same peace with my someone again. _

_The rift continues to keep us busy. Rather, what's left of us. It keeps us on our feet, keeps us running around. It isn't the same, though. It's hard to ignore the large void that he left when there's no one flirting with the attractive guy next door, or being as undiplomatic as possible with the policemen, or chasing after whichever violent species came through that day, Webley out and coat tails flapping. We try to forget him, we really, really do, but it seems to be damn near impossible._

_Every time we acquire a new piece of tech I can practically hear the snarky comment that he would pass about its appearance. Every time we encounter a species that we never have, before, I can picture him standing behind the autopsy bay rail, recounting the last time he met them and a wild night or two or three. _

_No one says anything, no one ever acknowledges that he's gone, and no one ever reassures me that he is coming back. We're not naïve, and I think we all know that it's foolish to think that he would come back to us, for us, when he's got the whole universe at his fingertips out there. And the worst part is that I don't even resent him for that decision. I always knew that we were just blips in time to him._

_I try to convince myself that it was purely physical between us, that what we had was nothing more than a few hours spent pleasurably and a bed shared for convenience. I'll succeed, someday. I _have_ got the rest of my life to do it. _

_The others keep telling me to get out, go to a pub, find someone nice, spend the night with them. But I know that I can't. Not when he would still be the only one I thought of._

_His laugh, the words he would whisper into my hair when he thought I was asleep, the way he would look at me when we lay in bed together, the gentle teasing, the soft touches, they're still so fresh in my memory. I wish they weren't. But then I really can't expect anything else, seeing as I spend night after night down in his bunker, wrapped up in his sheets and his smell and the memories of a long time ago._

_It always seems so real. Some nights I can convince myself that it's his arms I'm wrapped in, and not my own. My heart always breaks again in the morning, but that can't be helped. Those memories are all I have left. They're all I have left to get me through one day, and the next, and the next, and all the ones after. _

_Maybe, someday, I'll be brave enough to get rid of the yet-unused blade that sits in my bathroom cabinet, and the unopened bottle of retcon that sits in my bedside drawer. Maybe, someday, what I still have will be reason enough for me to continue on this road. Torchwood and Tosh and Gwen and even Owen and the dreams of me and him and the memories of a wonderful time gone past. Someday I'll close that chapter of my life that has been labelled with three words that are so special. When that day comes, I'll get rid of the blade and the retcon, and I'll begin to live again._

_All I wish is that that day stops seeming like an unattainable dream._

_Ianto_

He shut his diary with a sigh.

It had been such a long two months.


End file.
